


Roxanne, Daughter Of Light, MegaWoman

by NeoQwerty



Category: The Protomen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, MegaMan Is A Girl, Rewriting Act 1 (The Protomen), Rule 63!Megaman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27439453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoQwerty/pseuds/NeoQwerty
Summary: She's so... weak, when he first meets her.Wily's Monster can't help following the child scavenging in the Outskirts-- and that's what she is, a wide-eyed, curious child, in a body shaped like a woman but running tight with untapped power.But when she marches on Wily's factory, she's changed.She's different from what he'd last seen her look like. Her eyes are shining, blindingly bright in the darkness. There's vengeance on her soul, there's fight in her body, there's a sharp tension and defiance in every inch of her being.
Relationships: Blues | Proto Man & Rockman | Mega Man
Kudos: 2





	Roxanne, Daughter Of Light, MegaWoman

She's so...

 _Weak_.

Protoman can't help following the child-- and that's what she is, a wide-eyed, curious child, in a body shaped like a woman but running tight with untapped power. She runs about, a wild mane of soft brown-gold, like the cracked earth beyond the edge when rain finally waters it, and wearing clothes that look like she escaped from the center into the slums. Proper blouse and skirt and a cameo necklace, this fancy lacy ribbon thing on her throat, then nets on her legs and sturdy boots with inch-high heels and fingerless gloves and a patched up red leather jacket.

It looks suspiciously familiar and he wonders if she stole it from his grave, sentimental enough to carry the keepsake of a brother who died in agony and loneliness, unaware of how very deeply he despises Man now. What would she say, if she saw him now, Wily's Commander and second in command, torn between hatred and hope, between killing humans of his own spite and desperately straining against his altered programming?

He's still stupid enough to tail her, to follow her like a moth to a flame, and Wily laughs mockingly in his ears as he obsesses over the Second, the sister he doesn't know the name of, tracking her like a hound does wounded prey. She's vulnerable out there, and she doesn't even notice he's following her, and she has no weapons on her, she's _weak_ and he...

He wants to protect her. To trap her away, in Light's territory, so she stops wandering into Wily's City, so she can be safe and never have to learn the lessons in hurt and (whatever word that icy cold denial was) and assault. He wants to spare her what he's become, he wants her to have her dead brother who is invincible and uncorrupted and righteous, he wants her to stay _shielded_ forever.

So he shadows her when she meets his patrol route, until Wily snaps his leash and makes him slink back to his patrols and missions and his hands get redder. But he keeps an eye on her when he can.

\-------------

She finds out eventually, but not until a few years have passed. Wily seems to find his fixation absurdly funny, alludes to things he doesn't know the definitions for, doesn't have the framework for. He's a soldier, he was built to fight and destroy, he was repurposed to assassinate. His vocabulary is wide and varied, but dry and without idioms and turns of phrase, sterile and lacking nuances, lacking _needs_ , lacking tertiary colors.

One day, though, she draws him into the open of an old park in the slums being reclaimed by the edge, and then whirls on him before he can leap. She's curious about him, shows him her open palms, shows she's not a threat, a sign of surrender as her hands hover in the air, and she moves closer.

"You're a weird one, aren't you? Following me around like a lost robot puppy?"

She sounds... _Weak_. Willing to talk to him like a human, even though he looks like a red Sniper to her, even though he's tense and ready to bolt, to attack, terrified Wily will suddenly think it's not so funny and tell him to dispose of the distraction. She wouldn't stand a chance against him.

"People say you lot can't talk in human words. Can you?"

She seems expectant, and, dumbfounded, he finds himself bemusedly shaking his head at her. What is this _girl_ even _doing_?

"...No? Awh, that's too bad. I thought we could have talked. I wonder why you like to follow me so much..."

She gives him a curious, considering look, before shrugging and grinning.

"Ah, well! Maybe I'll figure it out someday! Anyway, I was going to scavenge a few things, my dad found an old phonograph and he's going to fix it for my birthday! You coming, enforcer?"

He's already trotting toward her before he's processed her question, and Wily just snickers at him again as she starts leading him around. He's helpless to do anything but follow, now that he's formally invited to help, and it'll take several pulls of the leash to get him back to heel that afternoon.

\------------

Somehow, it's not the last time she invites him along, and he wonders if she knows who he is, or not. Maybe she thinks otherwise, doesn't recognize him for what he is. Maybe, he thinks as he looks into blue eyes that don't glow, she doesn't know what _she_ is, and that's why she doesn't catch on to the flashes of blue under his visor.

He finds himself longing for those moments, taken right under Wily's eyes, Wily's ears always listening to her prattle on. She never leads him toward Light's part of the city, never mentions a name. All she gives is a vague picture, what any girl who's a little wrong in the head might say to a non-aggressive enforcer that helps her recover bits and bobs of life.

Once, she takes him to a music dig-up, looking for songs, for vinyls, for tapes, and...

Wily points some scraps out, salvageable, with a strange tone and even stranger... Wishfulness...? He points it out, Protoman fetches, he brings it to the girl and she squeals, eyes going bright, bright, too blue to be excitement alone.

 _'...p-please. Please leave her... leave her be, Wily...'_ he thinks desperately, sends over radio, for the first time, after Wily falls suddenly quiet.

 _'She isn't just a rebel girl, is she, Protoman,'_ Wily's voice replies, sweet as honey, poisonous, dangerous. Testing him, suddenly one command away from saying, "kill her", and having him obey.

 _'She's Light's daughter. She can't fight. She can't even lift things a strong human woman would be able to,'_ he answers and reports, and for the longest moment silence falls, and the light in the girl's eyes dies down, dulls back to human, hides what she is again.

 _'...You'll beg for me tonight, Protoman. If you're convincing, I'll make sure she lives. Unless she tries to rise against me, that is.'_ That icy feeling threads into him, rips a shudder he only barely suppresses. He can do this. There isn't much left that he won't do, that he knows of, to keep what little good there is in the City safe and sound.

 _'Yes, Director Wily. She won't, Director Wily. She's just a girl playing at being grown-up, collecting scraps of old music,'_ and something sour is on his tongue for a moment, before he reflexively swallows it down, like he'd swallowed back when it was his blood in his mouth as he lay dying.

The girl doesn't know what she just dodged, as she tells him to lift up another wall from the ground so she can look underneath with hope. And it's better that way.

\-----------------

It's not better, she's a fool, she's a _fool_ , she's marching on Wily's factory and he has standing orders to kill her. He tries to send Enforcers, to send Wily's robots at her, to send _his killers and torturers_ at her.

She destroys them, all light and fury and fire, an avenging angel, and he would be impressed if she wasn't ruining what he'd fought to keep safe, what Light had fought to keep, and she spits in both their faces by fighting.

She's different from what he'd last seen her look like. She isn't wearing that necklace of hers anymore. She's wearing a battle helmet like the one he'd worn, in blue. She's wearing his old jacket. She's got an arm canon instead of her left arm, blue too. Her eyes are shining, blindingly bright in the darkness. There's vengeance on her soul, there's fight in her body, there's a sharp tension and defiance in every inch of her being. 

She looks stronger, her muscles no longer atrophied by power suppression. She's still slighter than him, not grotesquely muscular, still has that femininity coiled in her, but he can tell that she can...

She grabs onto Gutsman's arm with her one hand, the blue of her blunt nails shining metallic, and her body roars as she flashes her eyes white, sends the juggernaut sailing over her head and into a wall, where he cracks and falls still, eyes shutting off. He stares at her in wonder, feels something rising within, warm and protective and so good, so bright, that it shuts up Wily's voice, tunes it out as irrelevant. All he can hear is her.

"You! Commander! Step forward, into the light! Let me see who it is I'm fighting!"

His pulse is a frantic beat again, and he finds himself revving his own engine, shining his eyes brighter, as he obeys. He takes a step forward. Then another. And again. Leaps, almost dainty, off the deck he was looming on.

She recognizes the red Sniper. He sees the moment she recoils, angry and betrayed. Then she recognizes who he really is. How the fight blows out of her like a candle in the wind, how her eyes widen, how her voice trembles as her arm-cannon lowers.

"...No, no, it's not... It can't be you. You-- your eyes are... like mine," she stammers out, disbelief and rising horror. "You can't be Protoman. You can't be my brother. Father said he was..."

And then, from the crowd, weary, defeated, brokenhearted, Light's voice. "I'm sorry, Roxanne. I... I couldn't let you know what your brother turned into."

And, this hurts. It hurts just like it had back when the life was draining out of him, when he wordlessly begged to be saved, repaired, given another chance. His own father, hiding the truth, because he didn't want to call what he'd become 'Protoman' anymore.

It hurts, and Protoman is tired of hurting. He wants this to end. He's finally willing to die. So he starts throwing his own punches, tears into his own ranks, shakes off Wily's attempts to drag him back under control. He lashes out at everything around and clears a path, heading toward... His sister, whose name he only knows now.

She stares at him in a mixture of horror and anger and hurt. "...Protoman. _Brother..._ "

And... he tears his eyes away from her, roars at the crowd, because they're the ones he hates so much, because if he's going to die, he wants to die knowing they're ashamed of themselves.

" **Tell me, Man, if even one of you would stand and fight! Tell me! Tell me that there's even one, a single one of you, just one soul who would rather die bravely than live like this, cowering and bowing! _Tell me! Show me, Man!_** "

But no one does. No one moves. No one looks away. They only look at him, with contempt and hatred, so very sure of their own moral heights from where they cower, shouting orders at the Second to kill the First, so he turns to her, his voice going flat.

"They looked to me, once. Now it's your turn. And they don't want to change it, they just want a convenient martyr, some monument to pray and curse at. They don't want a hero. They don't want change, understand that. They'll let you die to save themselves. They'll let _each other_ die to save themselves," he tells the truth, every strand of it, rotten and corrupt and defeating, the bitter pill he had to swallow when he died, when she interrupts.

"Protoman... How can you stand here and _say_ this? You were--"

"I was their hero. I stood where you stand now, I fought for them, I bled for them, I _died for them_ , and _nothing changed, sister!_ Nothing _changed_. If they deserve to live, **then let them prove it!** " He spreads his arms out, raises his head, lets himself glare at the crowd around them.

" **Raise a hand against me, strike me, show me you deserve life, show me you have a spine, _fight for yourselves, for eachother, for once!_** "

But none of them move. And he knew they wouldn't. He lowers his hands back to his sides, glares at his sister, as if it would force her to suddenly see reason.

"I've given everything I can. _We've_ given them everything we could. So let's just finish this," he finishes, and watches with dead eyes as she shakes her head, desperate and furious and betrayed, looking for all the world like she wants to fall to her knees, like she just wants her brother to kneel down next to her. His heart aches when she answers.

"I won't fight you."

"You don't have a choice."

"We'll stand together!" She pleads with him, offers him her hand, gives him a desperate smile, as if she can somehow make his years as a monster, gorging on his own bitterness and evil, disappear through sheer will.

And it hurts him, to hear this, because it means she didn't listen, she has no idea how death twisted him.

"I stand alone."

"Protoman, you're still their hero!" He hears what she really means, what he sees in her eyes. Somehow, somehow... He chokes on his breath, feels his eyes burn. What's happening to him...? She still thinks he's a hero. That there's good in him.

"Then they're _fools!_ " She recoils from his sudden viciousness as if he struck her, and he starts advancing on her, uses his slight height and build advantage to try and intimidate her, force her to cower and bend before she's broken.

"It can't be the only way, _please!_ "

"When this is over, you'll see it. Mankind won't stand, they'll fall, they won't fight."

"They don't deserve this! Please," she begs, she begs so well, but Protoman finds himself furious, screaming at her as she raises her own voice, blocks blows that he doesn't quite put his heart into. "brother, we're their only hope! They don't know any better, they're not ready!"

"They'll never fight!"

"They're _afraid_!"

And Protoman shoves Roxanne, harder than he meant to, sends her on the floor with a surprised yelp, but his scream makes her mute for the longest moment.

" _ **So was I!**_ "

Admitting it, admitting what the ice-cold dread was, feels like he's torn his own heart out and thrown it to the wolves to be devoured and shredded apart, desecrated, like the last part of himself he managed to save is now gone. Everything suddenly feels so, so very cold, and he's so very tired.

"...You're not evil. You're not _broken_. You're just _hurt_. Brother, let me help...!" She makes to push herself off the ground, talking gently, soothingly, as if he's a wounded animal to cajole into cooperation.

He snarls and raises Liferuiner, lets the barrels spin with ominous clicks, and aims directly at her head, stares down at her with eyes visible under the blast visor of his helmet.

"Let's see if they'll come to your defense, sister. You're their hero. A single distraction, and I'd have to turn. We both know that. So I'm waiting."

He's cold, implacable, and her eyes dart left and right, take in the silence, looks at his laser gatling with the first spark of fear, of resignation.

"...We both know they'll never do it."

And yet, she pushes the gatling aside. He doesn't resist; he's made his point now. 

"Now you get it. There's no heroes, only cowards. Mankind is doomed."

She climbs to her feet, her head bowed, hair falling in her face and obscuring it, but he turns his back on her to glower at the crowd.

" **You'll never have another hero! There's never going to be another chance! You'll fall because _you didn't even try to stand!_** " His words agitate the crowd, stir it to chant for his death, and for a moment, one bitter moment, he thinks he's won. He hears the whine of his sister's arm cannon charging, is ready to hear it go off, to hear the crowd's screams stop and be replaced with fear.

And then his world goes white, goes red around the edges, shattering into pain. He looks down, detachedly, and watches a wound far too large for his auto-repairs to solve with far-away pain, disconnected from his body.

Oh. It. She.

She shot him.

He turns, the motion slow, and looks into her eyes. She looks... Like she's going to be sick. Her arm-cannon glows, and melts into a hand made of blue metal, and she reaches for his shoulders.

He should... try to comfort her, shouldn't he?

She holds him steady, as tears start spilling from her eyes. His hearing flickers on and off, but he can hear her, the quiet horror, her apologies. He forces out words, through his vocoder.

"Helmet. Mine. Off. Please."

Her hands take it off, almost delicately, and there's a fresh wave of sobs and tears when she finally sees his face, sees his own tears, sees the feral, primal fear everything living has of dying, even if in his case, it's not the first time. She splays a hand over his cheek, and when his knees start to buckle, she's sinking both of them on their asses, right there on the battlefield.

"I... oh... I didn't... You don't look how I imagined you did..."

"Imagined... Robot? Steel? Just... human. Same... as you."

"I... I see that, now. I'm, oh, God, I'm sorry..."

"Was me... or them. You made... choice. Maybe... they'll get it. Hero... just means... knowing... you're free. Nothing... to lose."

His sight flickers, growing dark, and he knows his eyes have gone dim. His sight is nothing more than his systems finally revealing themselves, a last effort to keep him alive, tallying desperately as his components fail one after the other.

"...toman...! Pro...! ...brother...!" Her voice is far away, now, and he can feel himself plunging into death, calm and accepting this time.

And then his hearing rushes back one last time.

" _I'll destroy every evil. **Starting with you.**_ "

Roxanne's voice is almost unrecognizeable, but he hears the viciousness in it, and finds himself trying to claw to consciousness, one last time, no, no, _no, no, no_ , she wasn't meant to turn into a monster like him, _**no!**_

His eyes flicker on, one last time. He sees blood, from where he lies. He sees corpses. Burned, broken, charred by sunfire and what wasn't cauterized is leaking everywhere, and he hears his sister's slow, calm footsteps fading away.

He doesn't have breath left to yell, but his vocoder makes one last, agonized sound, a digital wail that trails off into death.


End file.
